The central part played by internationalization in the acquisition of multiple social resources appears as a general trend in the dynamics of recomposition of the elites, including the Catholic Church. In this field of debate, this article seeks to answer the following questions: what is the place of this process in the case of a Vatican-based, supranational professional institution, which has its own codes and criteria of recruitment, selection and ascension? Which are the forms of international circulation and what is its role in the training of the religious body and also in the struggles for the definition of new hierarchies of knowledge? Which destinations, cultural experiences and skills are more valued on the current status of the institution and how is the access to these assets distributed among its members? Finally, how are experienced and perceived the different ways of internationalization of the high clergy and what is the place it takes among the instruments of legitimation within the field of power?
bishops; Catholic Church; elites; international circulation
